The After Journey
by A.B.B.N Hibbard
Summary: Welcome to the After Journey. The Journey of Christian and Anna dealing with life, family, and adventure. With six children plenty of nephews, siblings and their parents, their Journey is quite the story. I use all the original characters, but their children are different. I have added my own twists. You will read through many different perspectives.
1. The Start of the Storm

Chapter One

Zaylie

I slammed the front door behind me, cringing a bit. It was a lot louder than I thought it would be. My father already hated when anyone slammed doors, and I knew my next few actions would probably end my life, but I was already committed. I might as well go over the top and give it my all. It was now or never and I needed to get my point across. Actually, I was kind of hoping that this was just the beginning. I had a wonderful devious plan already cooking if they failed to see my side of things. I took a few deep breaths and headed into the living room, but was struck cold with fear and surprise.

I stood there scanning the room. What in the world was my whole family doing here. I was already nervous enough to do this infront of my parents, and my five older brothers. Now I had my grandparents, my two aunts, two uncles and my nine cousins also piled in my living room. I looked at everyone and they all stared back with worried and shocked expressions, only then did I remember my stunt of slamming the front door hard enough for it to echo through the whole house. - Crap, this is going to be bad. - I thought as my eyes shifted over to my father who looked pissed. He began to get up and speak but I cut him off by raising my hand and taking a step forward.

Show time.

"Don't even think about it dad. I'm the one who is mad. I'm the one who gets to do the talking, shouting and whatever else I feel like. Not you." I said, keeping eye contact with my father which was the hardest thing that I have ever done. I could tell he was getting angrier by the second, but I also knew that I caught his attention, and knew he wanted to see where this was going to go. My dad wasn't use to his children talking to him like this. Well, Teddy sometimes did but he was 23 so it was different.

"How dare you put cameras in my school for the sole purpose of keeping track of me. I might understand if it was for security reasons, but it isn't. My school has the best security, you made sure before allowing me to attend. It has better security than your damn security firm that you decided to start 14 years ago." I took a deep breath, I didn't anticipate swearing, but it was already too late. I pointed at my father and continued. This was easier than I thought it was going to be. Then again I didn't think I was this mad until I began speaking. "If it was just the cameras at school, then maybe, just maybe I'd be okay with that, but why the hell do you even need those cameras, adding your own personal cameras just to keep tabs on me is insane! Your stalker tendencies knows no bounds!" I was shouting at this point and fighting back tears, my dad's face held shock and very little anger, but I knew it was still there. I quickly scanned the room, and realized that my brothers and my mother already knew but the rest of my family had no clue according to the expressions on their face. My eyes averted back to my father.

"Not to mention the ones in my bedroom. I want those out! I won't even talk about those, I want them gone. My bedroom is my own personal space." I took a deep breath and looked down. It was true that the cameras were pointed at my windows and door to see if anyone would walk in, but there was also a camera point at my bed, why I wasn't sure, but I'm sure it was to make sure I didn't have any boys in bed with me. I was 15 years old for goodness sake. The tears that were stinging my eyes, were now freely falling down my hot rosy cheeks. I didn't even care anymore. "It's like you don't trust me. What have I done in the past 15 years that gives you the right to not trust me." I was starting to really cry and I knew that soon they wouldn't be able to understand me.

I knew the next step would send me over the edge because it was what I was most upset about. I gripped my favorite necklace. It full of soft blue gems that matched my mother's eyes. it was a gift from my father on my fifth birthday. He thought that I should carry the color with me. All my brothers had my mother's blue eyes, but I shared the cool deep grey color of my father. My mother loved that fact, my dad was always indifferent about it.

I wore it all the time, but in the end it was just all part of his plan. With the necklace firmly in my grasped I pulled as hard as I could, tearing it off my neck. The chain bit at the back of my neck, but I hardly noticed it. "You gave me this when I was five. Took it away on my birthday, you said you wanted to get it cleaned, you said you wanted to add a few gems to it, but…" I stopped. I needed to do it. This was going to be hard for me to do. I have never thrown anything at my father, and I knew if he didn't catch this, or block it, it was going to hurt. "You gave it back to me with a tracking device in it!" I yelled as loud as my body would allow while I was this upset, and threw the necklace at my father. He barely caught in time. The silver chain hitting his face. Anger flashed across his face, followed by shock, sadness and something that was a bit distance. I wasn't sure what it was, but I was distracted by my brothers.

"Don't you dare laugh, you guys aren't exactly innocent in any of this." I softly spoke as I pulled off two rings and three bracelets. The ones they had given me for my birthday. I looked down at them, I really didn't want to give them back, but now that I knew, I hated them. I looked up and threw them in their direction.

"Enough with the throwing young lady." My father spoke, but I ignored him. It took everything out of me not to answer him. Not to apologize for my actions or say that I wouldn't throw anything any more.

"All of those have tracking devices, microphones and who knows what else." My tears were starting to become really heavy and I knew my next words were going to be hard to understand. "Those are some of my favorite things." I looked back over at my father. "I want them back and debugged." I lowered my eyes to the floor. I stomped my foot and shouted as loud as I could manage. "If you keep doing shit like this, you will lose me forever!" As soon as I was done I walked away. I knew saying they would lose me forever was a bit of a stretch but it was true, as soon as I turned 18 they would lose me. I would leave this over protective domineering family, no matter how much it hurt, and wouldn't come back tell they learned their lesson.

I headed toward the stairs to escape to my room. My father moved toward me and without really thinking about it, I recoiled. I saw the hurt in my father's eyes, but it had to be this way. I had to hurt him for him to understand so I just added to it. "Don't touch me." I said louder than I meant to. I gaze up at him, but couldn't take the pain he was in, so I instinctively looked down and away from his gaze. I quickly moved around him, ran up the stairs and slammed my bedroom door so they knew I didn't want to be disturbed.


	2. The Stirring

Before I start chapter two, let me tell you that I love being over the top, as well as dramatic things, crazy adventures and more. So sometimes I might go overboard, but I always have a reason in the end. 3 This chapter isn't as exciting but it is fun, but not all chapters of books or stories can be since we need that time to do other things (:

Chapter Two

Christian

I let her go, we were both too emotional to carry out a decent conversation. If I did go up there we would end up getting into another fight. Neither of us needed that at the moment. The two of us have never had a full on fight before and I wasn't prepared for it right now. Plus, I had bigger problems to deal with at the moment. Tearing my eyes away from the direction of my daughter's room, I turned to face my family, who got the pleasure to see first-hand that Zaylie indeed shares not only the color of my eyes but my temper as well.

But first thing first.

"You put microphones in her jewelry?" I snapped at my boys ignoring the stares of the rest of my family. I watch them slowly shake their heads, a few holding small smirks, while the rest tried hard not to show any emotion.

"No, we just put a small light within that blinks every once in a while just to drive her insane." Theodore said with a smirk.

"It was just to get back at her, plus you can't talk, putting cameras in her room. Isn't that a bit much?" Junior fired back without missing a beat. He was definitely his mother's son

I didn't see it that way. Why should I, I was protecting someone that I loved. If anything were to happen to my family I wouldn't be able to handle it. I almost killed that fucker Jack Hyde when he broke into this house ten years ago and beat on Anna. It was a good thing I got home when I did, who knows what the hell he would have done if I didn't walk through the door. Not only that, I had to deal with a distraught daughter and angry sons. It wasn't an easy week. So that weekend I put extra measures of security around the house and put my security firm to use. According to Anna, I was misusing company property again, but hell it was my company.

Plus, the cameras were only activated if the motion detectors outside detected someone breaking in. She had her personal space, I wasn't looking in. Truth be told I didn't want to look in, she was a fifteen year old girl. I wasn't all that interested in what she did in her room, as long as what she did, didn't include a boy.

"They aren't activated, they only activate when the motion detectors detect someone breaking in the house so I know she is safe." I paused turned to my sister-in-law and continued, "So stop with the sour face Kate." I spat. After 23 years we still never completely got along. I tolerated her only because of my brother and Anna. She was a good friend and mother, I had to admit, and when the time called for it, we could carry out a decent conversation and joke, but most of the time we spent scowling at each other and arguing.

"I suppose that makes this whole situation a fraction less insane." She replied, and stood up. "Well this family gathering is officially shot." She looked around. "Time to go, let's give them time to save their relationship with their daughter, or whatever they will be doing." She stared at me with a hard look, the look she gave me was the same one she use to give me when I was first started dating her best friend. The gave me after she yelled at me for making Anna cry or angry. I just stared back, this girl didn't scare me, there were only a few people in this world that could ever intimidate me, and they didn't even know it.

Slowly and thankfully my family began to leave. My mother told me to fix this, my father didn't say anything, just gave me a look I hardly saw and walked out the door. My brother rolled his eyes at me and smacked me hard on the back and Mia just gave me a kiss on the cheek, I couldn't hear what she was saying to Anna. True be told, I didn't care all that much what they thought of this situation, it was my family and my rules, and what I say is what always happens, its just the way things went. It was all for their protection, but teenagers always had a way of throwing wrenches in things.

When they all left, I fell back on the couch next to Anna, leaned forward and rested my arms on my legs. I need to think. Anna put her hand on my back to reassure me. No one talked for a long time. The silence was a little uneasy, but mostly calming. I had to wrap my head around how to talk to a fifteen year old girl and somehow put my justification into words that she would understand. I didn't see the device in her necklace and crazier than tracking her phone, or the tracking device that cars came with.

"I'll go have a conversation with her first, see if she is calm and then I'll come get you when she is ready." I looked over at Anna. nodded my head in agreement and watched her walk away. After 23 years of marriage and I still haven't had my fill of Anna. I don't think I would ever get my fill of Anna. The thing I love the most is that, even to this day, she does things that surprises me.

After Anna disappeared I looked at my boys and asked what the heck she did, that was so bad they had to get back at her in this way. I knew they always picked on each other and did silly pranks here and there but I thought that stopped when Kalvin started attending college. It drove me insane not knowing what was going on. Yes, I do have control issues but those will never go away.

"Let us start at the beginning." I turned to face Jace whose eyes went distant as he began thinking back to what had happened. Jace had a way about telling stories, it was my favorite thing when he was little. His would get so excited, and if you let him, he would talk all day. "It started the day you and mom decided to take a Second Honeymoon which lasted almost two months, but who can blame you. Didn't your first honeymoon last almost a month?"

"Get to the story or I'm going to tell it." Blake blurted out. Blake didn't have much patience, especially when it came to Jace's tangents. The only reason I had any, was because I have been dealing with them for 21 years now. There was no changing the boy, so I gave up. Most of the time, I'd just hold up my hand and tell him to get to the point.

Jace glared at Blake and Blake stared hard back. "Stop it." I commanded and the boys broke their gaze and the story began.


	3. The Escape

I sighed and tore my gaze away from Blake. We got along great most of the time, it was just these few moments when we had issues. He was a buzzkill when it came to me wanting to go off on tangents. It was just a natural thing. I turned away from Blake and looked at my father and then down at my hands. I began to think back to what started us plotting our revenge. It sounds silly when I think about plotting revenge against a teenager, but when that teen is your sister it begins to make more sense. "It all started the day after you and mom left." I said and launched into the story.

_Flashback_

"I promise." Zaylie said as she put on her most 'I'm innocent, trust me' expression. I highly doubted that she was telling our parents the truth but I let it slide. She wasn't exactly the happiest about our parents heaving off, and leaving her here with us. The reason being, was because our parents told her that she had to listen to us. She wasn't always all about listening to her us, her older brothers. After she hugged our parents, she turned with a little too much attitude, pushed past us and headed toward the car.

I glanced back and stated "You really don't have to make Sawyer and Ryan stay behind."

"Yes I do." Christian said as he nodded in Taylor's direction. Ever since Zaylie started calling Taylor 'Uncle Tayle' dad made him Zaylie's personal security guard. I still to this day don't know if it was a good or bad choice. I swear that being in charge of Zaylie's safety is aging him twice as fast. However he was good for her. Zayle was excellent at ditching whoever was looking after her. She started ditching people when she turned 10 and now at the age of 15 she had perfected it, but with Taylor she had a lot harder time slipping away. This of course didn't stop her from trying.

Now that our parents were leaving, we had to deal with it. After saying goodbye to our parents we turned and headed for the cars. I slid in the back with Zaley, while Junior slid into the front of the ar next to Taylor. Teddy, Gabe and Blake slid into the car with Sawyer, while Ryan drove an empty car tailing us home.

"So, what is on the schedule for today. It's summer break, we have all day." Zaylie looked up at me with a wicked smile and then looked away. That is exactly what I thought. She was a good kid, with a devious side. I wasn't sure how to respond. We didn't have anything planned, maybe we could gather the family at our house and have a picnic and swim in the lake all day. "Don't say a family picnic, we have one planned for tomorrow, and Friday and at least once a week from then on out." She retorted as if she could read my mind. She didn't even look my way instead she stared off at the outside world as it whipped past her. We had a three hour drive, and it was going to be the longest three hours.

I sighted, and then looked up at Junior who looked back at me and rolled his eyes, "So you're saying you don't want to spend time with your family?" Junior asked kind of harshly to see if he could make her feel bad. It didn't work.

"No, I love spending time my family, just not every single day of my summer vacation thank you." So with that the two of us started throwing ideas around. Soon we got tired and just started a different conversation, the two of us got so into our conversation that we didn't notice Z putting her backpack on, or taking off her seatbelt. When I did notice it was too late, and everything happened way too fast. We pulled up at a stop light near a park, she smiled at me, unlocked and opened the door, jumped out, slammed the door and ran off into the park. The black car behind me pulled up on the curb and we watched Ryan take off after her.

As soon as the light turned green, Taylor and Sawyer pulled into the parking lot of the park and we got out of the car watching Ryan chase Zaylie who was having way too much fun.

"I should have seen this" Taylor said silently cursing himself. He held his earpiece and let Ryan know that he was probably going to lose her, she had probably already planned an escape route. Within a few seconds she disappeared.

By the time we joined Ryan where he stood rooted to the spot, we saw a path on the hill and a sled at the bottom. "She jumped on the sled, rode it down, jumped off the sled took a few steps and got on a bike and was gone." I stared in disbelief. How long had she been planning this.

"Let's go check the usual spots."

_End of Flashback._

"So that was the first incident which happened 2 hours after you guys took off on the plane." I watched my dad's face twist in annoyance and anger.

"So I'm assuming this story gets worse." He spat as he stood up and headed for the stares.

"If you think returning at midnight with a busted lip and a covered in a few bruises worse, then yes it does." Teddy said sarcastically as he headed to the kitchen. He was probably about to head out soon. He wasn't all about staying and watching Zaylie getting lectured. It always ended the same and nothing ever changed. The mood was never truly great in the house for a few hours after, dad always shut himself in his study or his bedroom with mom. Zaylie normally stayed in her room, and when she didn't she was always scary calm that was worse then our dad's anger.

"You aren't leaving yet." Dad called over his shoulder at Teddy who sank down onto a stool while picking at fruit he collected from the fridge.


End file.
